As much as I wanted to like this movie, and ESPECIALLY not wanting to throw shade on Dave Bautista, I'm afraid the words of none other than Macbeth are the most fitting as far as a review of this enterprise goes:
A.O.D. is but a walking shadow, some poor players
That strut and fret their two and a half hours upon the stage
And then are heard no more: It is a tale
Told by idiots, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
That having been said, the REAL shame here is, that, with just a little bit of re jiggering, and a little less stupidity on the part of any one of the panopoly of characters, and, this could have not only been an epic movie, but, possibly a even a (2 or 3 movie) franchise!
Any movie that starts from the jump with nekkid zombie stripper ta ta's is a go for me, just on the "Hmmm, I ain't seen THAT before factor alone. Now, throw in Siegfried and Roy's zombified Manticore' , and, you're going to hold my interest. Add super quick and agile "rage zombies, and a mix of your usual suspect "shufflin' and bitin' " zombies, as well as a full auto Drax the Destroyer, and a crew of mangey former tier one operators, who served their country honorably, but per current SOP, were promptly shat upon by the country that they so dutifully served, then, give them a chance to for once not just even the score but come out ahead, and, you HAD the basis for a pretty decent horror adventure flick.
But then SOMBODY had to go and try to grow a brain, perhaps thinking they could be "edgy", and, instead of delivering a fun, intelligent live action "Walking Dead" (first few seasons only), they decided to suck all the common sense from EVERY characters brain, and then have each one of them suddenly go mute at the most inopportune times, when a word, a note, or even a cryptic whisper, could keep someone from becoming zombie snackos'. Now add to that mix, a teenaged girl with one of the most full blown cases of narcissistic personality disorder ever witnessed on film, and have her played by an actor who every time she opens her mouth you just want to backhand her and send her to her room with no dinner. But, she's also a master of either guilting her father (team leader Scott Ward) for doing something she later admits "he had to do", or, forcing him to let her accompany the squad, (to "rescue the aforementioned STUPID friend) by threatening to run off and do it alone anyway, which is a certain one way trip. So, welcome to mercenary baby sitting, Z/A style.
All is not lost though as there are some nice bonding moments between Zen "man some of the shizz I've done" Vanderohe, and newbie merc / safecracker Ludwig Dieter, especially when it is discovered he doesn't even know Zombie 101 basics. Raul Castillos' "Mickey" who at first seems to be either a You Tube poser, or just a bit crazy, then actually turns out to be an honorable guy. Samantha Joe's "Chambers" is a formidable street fighter, but, sadly , her heroic last stand is wasted when in the end, she got a case of the mutes, when she could have saved the entire crew with a shouted warning.
Nora Arnezeder is believable as Lilly, The Coyote, even if she does let little miss prissy teen smack her around a bit, for helping another of Kates IDIOT friends do something stupid, that, in the end, does not bode well for the entire team. Tig Notaro I guess is OK, especially since she was a last minute "digital" substitute for Chris D'Elia, who was unceremoniously cancelled and erased from the movie due to misconduct of the sexual kind. It's not seamless, but, it's not distracting either. But, she too, got hit with the idiot stick at the last minute, and, her indecision literally was catastrophic. In BOTH their story arcs, Snyder chose to plagiarize, er, uh, be "inspired" by ENTIRE SCENES from "Aliens", then "edgily" flip the script, by declaring opposite day at their individual conclusions.
The longest walk of shame, IMO, goes to Bautista's character Scott Ward, for being either too blind of just plain dumb, to not see through the machinations of neither his Japanese Benefactor, nor his henchman sent along to fulfill the ACTUAL goal of the "heist". But, in his defense, a couple hundred million dollars tax free, can buy a mighty dark pair of rose colored glasses, and, even though he can't see the forest for the trees, nor, apparently when the passion fires of his former flame have burst into a bonfire. Her end was so telegraphed, that even as it occurred, you weren't really shocked, just saddened. Just as his end, and the way it came about, had one waiting for the sound track to cue up Alanis Morrissette, but, perhaps they couldn't get a music clearance..
ONE final chance at redemption comes in the form of the epilogue with Vanderohe, and, it could have played out the epic revenge scenario, but, alas it was not to be, and he, along with any chance at a sequel, was D.O.A.
So, in conclusion, I don't dislike this movie for it's short comings, but, because of it's unfulfilled potential. It didn't necessarily have to be all happily ever after, but, as you watch it, and the idiocy starts leaking out of the characters, see if you can glimpse the great movie that COULD have been.
let's get the important stuff out of the way
onto the actual review:
do you like mike flanagan? do you love incredible actors getting to give intense monologues that make you kind of want to die? are you okay with the fact that literally everything is going to be sad (of course you are, if you said yes to the first question)?
then watch this. you'll enjoy it, no question. just be down for a slow pace, bleakness and intensity, and the usual not-quite-horror vibes. flanagan's work never rests on horror laurels and i feel like it makes his pieces stronger.
also: i spent the entire time leading up to the actual release having no idea that hamish was the Mysterious Charming priest character and spent the whole first episode going ZACH WHY ARE YOU SO SAD AND NOT MYSTERIOUS but tbh it all made sense soon enough.
anyway, for those of you wondering who shouldn't watch this: a LOT of talk of death. alcoholism. small town trapped feelings, and loss of life that gradually picks up pace throughout the series. i'd say skip this if bleak content puts you in a bad place. i also have a relative recently diagnosed with alzheimer's and that made the first couple episodes a bit harder.
since it's pretty obvious from the first or second episode, the rest of my comment isn't technically a spoiler BUT if you like going in totally blind, stop now!!
i think the way this show handles vampirism mythology is actually quite unique. it focuses far less on the vampire lore itself and far more on how easy it is for people desperate for answers to the universe to fit everything from completely ordinary occurrences to an actual batwinged monstrosity into a religious context if they just quote the right piece of scripture.
Only in the most vague way is this related to Train to Busan. This is a zombie movie based in South Korea set 4 years after the outbreak we saw in Train to Busan. I can admit that Seoul Station wasnt that good either, but at least they tried even with the choppy animation.
But here they go full ham on terrible, terrible CG and law-breaking physics. 4 years of disuse and the cars work, the roads are totally clear, there is electricity and functioning machinery. It just can't be.
This movie is clearly targeted towards fans of the original because there are some lines in English, awful awful cheesy dialogue that belittles the experience of living in a zombie infested wasteland and just contextually makes no sense at all.
And everyone in this movie is ugly and mentally insane. I liked Captain Seo, great character that makes sense, but Hwang is just bad to be bad. The military went full evil and now they're doing death matches. You also can't start a movie with heart wrenching scenes and expect us to care about the characters. Motivation for the main group also isn't really developed or explained and only really is justified by a flashback or singular line here and there.
All the English casting also makes no sense. I just can't understand why this film was made this way.
Large sections of the movies are completely in CG, they're actually awful and they look so bad. Skip this film, it just ain't worth it.
